Pelvic Floor course in London, UK

This post was written by guest-blogger, H&W faculty member Michelle Lyons. You can catch Michelle teaching our Pregnancy and Postpartum series courses, Pelvic Floor Series courses, as well as our new courses on Oncology and the Pelvic Floor and the Athlete and the Pelvic Floor. Michelle lives in Ireland and was an integral part of bringing Institute founder, Holly Heman, to the UK to teach two courses this spring.

Two weeks ago, Institute founder Holly Herman took London by storm and presented Pelvic Floor Level 3 to an enraptured audience. Twenty one unsuspecting British and Irish physiotherapists gathered in the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital for an unprecedented weekend of pelvic health assessment and treatment techniques. They may have been surprised at the breadth and width of topics covered, from orthopaedics, hormones and surgery, but they weren’t the only ones who got a surprise that weekend.

The night before we started, Holly and I were at the hotel, preparing slides and tweaking the schedule, when a very familiar head popped around the corner – Diane Lee! To say that Holly was surprised would be something of an understatement (I had been sworn to secrecy for months beforehand – dire threats had been issued!) The hilarity and bonhomie that ensued set the tone for the rest of the weekend.

We had a mix of clinicians – physiotherapists who just treated women, those who specialised in all areas of pelvic health and a couple of brave musculoskeletal physios for whom this was their first pelvic floor course! We were lucky to have a great presentation by Jenny Burrell, of Burrell Education, the UK’s leading provider of continuing education to fitpro’s, who highlighted how her profession works with pelvic floor issues with an entertaining and dynamic presentation, and the legendary Diane Lee also gave a presentation on her latest work and research on diastasis. Diane was generous with her time and knowledge throughout the course and I think gained a new insight into the world of pelvic rehab!

Holly also gave a three hour presentation during her time in London, to a large audience containing physiotherapists, doctors, midwives and fitpro’s, including a very dynamic theraband demonstration of the role of the pelvic floor in all aspects of health and function. Special mention must go to Mr Gerard Greene, who played the role of the clitoris with aplomb!

Holly worked tirelessly throughout the weekend to make sure that everyone left on Sunday evening enthused and excited about pelvic rehab and our role as part of the multi-disciplinary team. While British and Irish physiotherapists have traditionally enjoyed more autonomy in the private practice setting (there is a long history of direct access), there is common ground between US therapists and their Irish & English counterparts when it comes to highlighting the broad role of pelvic rehab providers to our medical colleagues and our communities – a great deal of enthusiasm for the international roll out of the PRPC process was observed.

Compliments were flowing throughout the weekend, not only regarding Holly’s fantastic teaching style but on the hugely beneficial resource that the PF3 manual was sure to become. Plans are already afoot for future HW courses on this side of the pond.